Abstract

This study aims to determine the views of teacher trainees about their professional proficiency and development. This is a qualitative study carried out according to scanning method. The subjects of the study are 94 volunteer senior teacher trainees studying at Primary Teacher Training Department of Education Faculty, Selcuk University. The study was carried out in the first term of 2007-2008. In the study, teacher trainees were asked three open-ended questions to collect data. The participants were firstly asked whether they find themselves professionally proficient. Secondly, their opinion was asked as to whether they would need professional development and thirdly, they were asked what they were going to do to develop professionally. In the analysis of data, frequency, percentages and descriptive analyses were used. The findings of the study are given under three headings; “Teacher trainees’ views about their professional proficiency”, “Teacher trainees’ views about their need for professional development”, and “Teacher trainees’ views about the ways they will use to meet their professional development needs”. According to the findings of the study, the senior Primary School teacher trainees do not consider themselves adequately sufficient and they believe that they will need to develop themselves professionally.